Two key initiatives mark 11 months of Das govt in J'khand

Downsizing departments and lateral entry of technocrats as advisors have been two key initiatives taken by the Raghubar Das government in Jharkhand, which today completed 11 months in office.
"The downsizing and reorganization of departments with a reduction of the number of departments from 43 to 31 and the scheme of lateral entry of technocrats as advisors in Jharkhand have been the two key initiatives that attracted the Prime Minister's Office," an official release said here.
The PMO, it said, had asked NITI Ayog to circulate these "best practices" so that they could be replicated in other states.
"The downsizing and restructuring of government departments on this scale is perhaps the first of its kind in a state government," the release said.

The lateral entry of technocrats as advisors was introduced in September.
"The government shall appoint advisors as special secretaries and MDs of state PSUs. What has truly made the Jharkhand model unique is that the search and selection committee is to be aided by a human resource consultancy agency, which shall identify individuals recognized as area experts and request them to join the government," it said.

The agency would be responsible for the yearly evaluation of advisors' work, it said.
Under the reform initiative departments similar interrelated functions and goals were merged. Finance, planning and institutional finance were merged to create one department in order to expedite decision-making in the critical area of sanctioning of schemes, allocation and release of funds.

Some departments were bifurcated as per requirement like primary, secondary and higher education, which came under the purview of the human resource development. But now higher education has been separated and merged with technical education to give a fillip in higher and technical education as the state lagged in this area, the release said.
It said social media has been included in the charter of public relations department, geospace in IT and e-governance department, climate change in forest department and innovation in governance in personnel and administrative reforms department.